«You've stopped drinking?» she said, looking at him steadily and unsmilingly. «What for?»
«It wasn't doing me any good,» said Bob. «Don't you approve of the idea?»
Jessie raised her eyebrows and one shoulder slightly.
«Entirely,» she said with a sculptured smile. «I could not conscientiously advise any one to drink or smoke, or whistle on Sunday.»
The meal was finished almost in silence. Bob tried to make talk, but his efforts lacked the stimulus of previous evenings. He felt miserable, and once or twice his eye wandered toward the bottle, but each time the scathing words of his bibulous friend sounded in his ear, and his mouth set with determination.
Jessie felt the change deeply. The essence of their lives seemed to have departed suddenly. The restless fever, the false gayety, the unnatural excitement of the shoddy Bohemia in which they had lived had dropped away in the space of the popping of a cork. She stole curious and forlorn glances at the dejected Bob, who bore the guilty look of at least a wife–beater or a family tyrant.
After dinner the colored maid who came in daily to perform such chores cleared away the things. Jessie, with an unreadable countenance, brought back the bottle of Scotch and the glasses and a bowl of cracked ice and set them on the table.
«May I ask,» she said, with some of the ice in her tones, «whether I am to be included in your sudden spasm of goodness? If not, I'll make one for myself. It's rather chilly this evening, for some reason.»
«Oh, come now, Jess,» said Bob good–naturedly, «don't be too rough on me. Help yourself, by all means. There's no danger of your overdoing it. But I thought there was with me; and that's why I quit. Have yours, and then let's get out the banjo and try over that new quickstep.»
«I've heard,» said Jessie in the tones of the oracle, «that drinking alone is a pernicious habit. No, I don't think I feel like playing this evening. If we are going to reform we may as well abandon the evil habit of banjo–playing, too.»